In the Heart of the Sea is a turbulent retelling of the real life events behind Herman Melville’s classic novel, Moby Dick.
It’s a film about storytelling, as the adventure unfolds through the narrative of Thomas Nickerson (Brendan Gleeson), who recounts his experience as a 14-year-old cabin boy on board the Nantucket whaleship Essex. Herman Melville (Ben Whishaw) arrives at Nickerson’s home at the invitation of his wife, who pleads with her husband to unburden himself of the tragic events of that voyage. Reluctant at first, Nickerson is persuaded by his wife that to share his story, to confess to Melville what he witnessed and endured, will liberate him from the weighty chains of guilt that he has silently carried all his life. Melville, keen to prove himself as a serious author, has pen and notebook at the ready as Nickerson begins: ‘The tragedy of the Essex is the story of men. And a Demon.’
Blurred ethics
That story of men begins in 1819, in the bustling whale shipping centre of Nantucket. Whale oil is providing the energy to light the streets of the world’s capital cities and is fuelling the industrial revolution. There’s a lot of money to be made for ship owners, insurers and successful crews, and it soon becomes clear that the lucrative whale oil business makes for blurred ethics and questionable moral decisions. We meet Owen Chase (Chris Hemsworth) in discussion with the owners of the whaleship Essex, anticipating the reward of a promised captaincy. The owners inform him that their promise will be postponed, as he is made First Mate while the captaincy has been assumed by George Pollard (Benjamin Walker), a man of higher ranking, born into a seafaring family. A dangerous animosity is quick to blossom between the two, uniting only in their desire to bring 2000 barrels of whale oil back to the Nantucket shores within two years.
